In Theory

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? -- Luke 10:29

In some ways, Christianity is much like Zen in its teachings.  Jesus doesn’t answer our questions as much as He simply tells us what to do.  I was reading Kierkegaard last night, and he mentions this in relation to Paul’s statement in Romans 13:8 that love is the fulfillment of the law.  If someone asks, “What is love?” the answer is not to feel good about someone but to act righteously.  There is no good intellectual definition of love.  It matters what we do, not what we say. 

Many times the unbeliever is like the lawyer who questioned Jesus in Luke 10.  A question may be a legitimate quest for enlightenment, or, as appears to be the case here and with the Rich Young Ruler, a way to justify avoiding doing good.  We know what the rules are.  We know, most of us, what the law says.  Do it.  See what happens. 

A few months ago, my No. 2 granddaughter asked me for a favorite Bible verse:

When I think about it, this is the great leap forward of science, the experimental method as outlined by Jesus. 

Beware of getting caught up in debates and arguments, questions and doubts.  We are not going to go to heaven because of our works of righteousness we have done.  Yet the person of faith is a practitioner of righteousness.  There is no such thing as a theoretical Christian.

Working Man Blues

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:  Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. -- Isaiah 43:1

It’s not an earworm.  Brain Jig, maybe – it’s a recurring thought that I have or keep recognizing in what someone else says or some experience that I have.  The reason I call it a jig is that things fit together in it. 

Did you ever know a person who made everything more complicated and harder than it needed to be?  Have you ever been that person?  I can answer both questions in the affirmative.  In a way, following Christ is challenging.  It can be a serious struggle, day after day, and so it is described as a battle and race.  Yet, Jesus calls to those who are “weary and heavy-laden” – some of us, as we talked about yesterday – and offers us rest and a lighter load to bear. 

In fact, our battle is to step aside and let the battle be the Lord’s.  We work hard to overcome the mindset of the world and enter the rest of Christ.  For years, beginning long before I surrendered to that Holy Hunter who dogged my steps, my typical way of saying good-bye was to say, “Take it easy”.  I still say it a lot.  I might have originally picked it up from the Jackson Browne/Eagles song that played about once an hour on the AM radio in my orange Chevy back in ’72.  It’s still good advice, but the paradox of fighting for peace remains true. 

We are stuck working out our “own salvation with fear and trembling” while God is “working in [us], both to will and to act for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).  Every time I read that, I feel like saying, Make up your mind.  Is it me, or is it God?  And the answer is – Yes, that’s right.  We will never enter Christ’s rest unless we work, and we will never work our way into His love and His grace.

We belong to the Lord.  He calls us by name, and we bear His name.  If I look at my inadequacy and my failures, I am afraid, and I feel that I need to try harder.  Yet even I, as flawed and foolish as I am, I am accepted in Christ.  Here is my Rock.  Here I may stand, and the battle is to believe it.            

Beyond Doing Good

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  – Titus 3:4-7

One of my favorite songs is “Vigilante Man”.  I have the electric slide version by Nazareth as a ringtone.  I enjoy Ry Cooder’s acoustic slide cover as well. It was written by Woody Guthrie.  Guthrie was a talented songwriter and musician.  Back in the ‘70s, David Carradine played Guthrie in a fairly honest movie, Bound for Glory.  In my opinion, Guthrie was a despicable human being.  Despite being portrayed heroically in the film, it’s not hard to pick up on Guthrie’s attitude.  Sometimes he is described as being a socialist or communist.  He was probably more of a sociopath than a socialist.  Popularizing socialism was an easy way for Guthrie to further his own ends. 

The point is this:  Being good at what you do does not necessarily make you a good person. 

This seems obvious in the case of a truck driver, a mechanic, a farmer, an accountant, a software developer, or a car salesman.  But it is also the case with artists, actors, singers, poets, writers, CEOs, educators, judges, military personnel, preachers, police officers, and politicians.

I guess the corollary is that being a good person doesn’t mean we will be good at any given job. 

Consider some examples:  George Gordon Lord Byron was a great poet.  He was famously described by one of his many female conquests as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”  One of the “best” preachers I ever heard was a manipulative bully, wife-beater, and chronic adulterer.   I’ve heard Ricky Skaggs tell how Bill Monroe wrote and sang the Gospel but struggled to live it.  LaVerne Tripp sang and wrote gospel songs for the Blue Ridge Quartet in the early ‘70s while battling alcohol and drug addiction. 

Doing good cannot make us good.  The rich young ruler asked Jesus what he had to “do” to have eternal life.  Jesus had already answered his question when He responded, asking, “Why do you call Me good?  There is none good except God.”  The flesh can do and say things that are beneficial, truthful, and even inspirational.  I would even say that we can be inspired such that our efforts express God’s love, grace, beauty, and truth -- without being set free by that truth.

The confusing thing is that Jesus “went about doing good.”  Good deeds and good words flow from the good person.  Yet as long as we are trying to conform, trying to be penitent, trying to win God’s favor, trying to impress the people around us, etc., we are failing to understand, and we will fail to be delivered from the bondage of sin and self.  

 Romans 8:10 says, “Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.”  "Christ in us" is not an accomplishment on our part but a result of grace, a fact which we accept by faith.  Some people get this and seem to run with it.  Others, like me, are slow.  I am yet only imperfectly grasping the truth that I can simply reject the flesh’s demands for satisfaction, attention, and glory.  I am not obligated to the flesh (Romans 8:12). 

The world, the flesh, and the devil are going to come around and tell us that Dewey Cheatum is a good person because of all the wonderful things he does -- his rousing oratorical skills, his soaring vision of a better world, the deep suffering he has endured for the sake of his nation, the sacrifices he has made to serve his neighbors, and how much he loves his family.  The truth is, though, that old Dewey is a wicked, conniving, self-serving little pervert from whom one should not buy a setting hen. 

Some people may say that this is the path of cynicism.  Then Jesus Himself was a cynic:  Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.  But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:23-25)

There are good people in the world.  There are people you can trust.  There are people who have serious flaws but are loyal friends.  We can and should forgive even those who betray us.  If some, though, betray us over and over again, if we catch them time after time in lies, if they remain unrepentant, remain defiant, it’s time to admit that we can have no confidence in them, and that no matter what their words and deeds, they are not good.    

Am I talking about one of my friends?  An unsavory business associate?  A cheating spouse?  Some political leader?  

No, actually, I'm talking about my self.  My flesh betrays me.  I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15).  Paul battled this same troubling entity.  He was delivered by grace, and we can be as well.  The Spirit is at work in each of us, and He is the one who gives us life.  We owe the old man nothing.  Pay no attention to his blathering and babbling.  I AM doesn't go on so much.  Be still and know I AM. 

Do You Have the Time?

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. --John 9:4

The Lord made this statement to His disciples because He was on His way to the Cross.  I think that we are to “make hay while the sun shines”.  It is a basic principle of a successful life that we ought to make use of present opportunities – unless the Spirit checks us.  The promises of the future may not be fulfilled. 

Jesus says this in the context of a question from His followers when they came upon a man blind from birth and wanted to know if the cause of this defect lay with the individual or his parents.   Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him (John 9:3).  This doesn’t mean, I don’t believe, that God made this man blind just so He could cure him.  A couple of chapters farther on, Jesus says something similar with regard to the illness of Lazarus being a condition that “does not lead to death” but being for the glory of God (John 11:4). It means that God seizes the opportunities created by evil and the consequences of our living in a fallen world to bring us life, encouragement, hope, and joy.

I do not often know why things happen.  In this sense, any work that I do is usually done in the dark.  I do what my hand finds to do (Ecclesiastes 9:10) as best I can.  I cannot know if it will make much difference in the course of history, but it will make a difference in me and possibly in another person or two that I am able to help out. 

We say we want workers to be paid a “living wage” yet we decry employers like Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby because they are owned by Christians.  We mock, attack, and ridicule Christianity and Christian values then are shocked to find that businesses, corporations, and governments are concerned only with money, power, and control and are rife with corruption, dishonesty, hypocrisy, and scandal.  We celebrate degeneracy and decadence and wonder why things are dying and going downhill.

The cure for America is not to pass laws requiring us to treat one another like – I don’t know – maybe Christians, but for us as individual Christians to live like Christians regardless of the government or the media or what other people think.  Right now that is not too hard, but it is getting harder quickly.  When the government can force businesses to fund abortions or bake cakes in violation of their convictions and religious beliefs, we are bordering on persecution.   

The time to get on the right track is now.  The time to do the right thing is now.  The time to stand up together against tyranny and government overreach is now.  The time for fervent prayer is now.  The time for radical obedience is now.  The time to do the works of Him who sends us is now.  

The time is now.

Praying in 2013

A prayer for the new year from Colossians1:9-14 --

Father, I ask that each one reading this would be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that they and I may live and converse with the world in a way that is worthy of and fully pleasing to You, bearing fruit in every good work to which we are appointed, even as we increase in our knowledge of You. 

I ask that You will strengthen us with all power, according to Your own glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, for which we give thanks continually to You -- the One who has qualified us for a share of the inheritance of the saints in light.  For You, Father, have delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of Your beloved Son -- in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.